There is a lot of meaning in aptly describing, naming, or acknowledging something.
Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96 percent were females killed by their intimate partners.
A domestic violence first offense is not subject to habitual offender sentencing. But, A domestic violence 3rd offense is. Keep in mind; the number of people who are actually domestically abused and the number who chose to involve the police are completely different. And it varies by state if a habitual domestic violator is subject to be considered a felony. Either way, someone is beating up on a lot of women (or men) before it’s considered “habitual” or a “felony”
Of course it is true that women abuse/assault men too, and not every man is hitting women. But, the staggering numbers of assaults and violence on women is a clear indicator that a big portion (the physically stronger one that makes more money) of the population has a problem with the other half.
My question is, if someone can utter a racial / or sexual derogatory slur while they are assaulting someone and it be considered a hate crime; why is it not possible in regards to gender? Especially when it comes to habitual offenders?
The implication is that it is impossible for someone to hate another gender, and use that hate as motivation for their victimization/abuse. Which of course, is untrue.
That’s one of the many reasons why attempting to impose harsher penalties for “hate crimes” as opposed to other crimes that are identical except for the hatefulness is such a bad idea. It means that the government has to decide which groups get the special privilege of being the victims of hate crimes and which groups don’t. No matter what the government decides, some people will have reason to complain.
It’s certainly possible, but how do you tell apart someone who beats his wife because he hates women in general from someone who beats her because she’s his wife?
Besides, as you mentioned, domestic violence exists too in same sex couples, and women beat their husband too (and it seems that in recent years it has been discovered that this was way more common than previously believed, especially since male victims are even less likely than females to complain/bring charges and to be taken seriously)
So, since I don’t believe beating your lesbian or male partner generally results from a mindset different from what leads to beat up your female heterosexual partner, I think that domestic violence is a specific category of its own, and shouldn’t be onsidered a hate crime.
I guess you could create a law punishing as a hate crime some attacks against women, but you would have to show that this particular attack was motivated by hate against women. A crime isn’t defined as a hate crime just because the victim happens to be Black, or homosexual. Why would it be any different regarding women?
If it could be proven that a man beat his wife because she was a woman, he could be prosecuted for a hate crime.
But what if a man beats his wife because she nags him?
What if he beats her because she didn’t get the house clean enough?
What if he beats her because she looked at him funny?
Assault and battery are already felonies, as they should be. But proving that an abusive husband was motivated by sexism is difficult, if not impossible. Better just to arrest him and prosecute him for what he DID, rather than for what he MIGHT have been thinking while he did it.
I think you are missing the point of hate crime laws and what hate crimes are. Hate crimes are crimes that serve the purposes of intimidating an entire class of people. Lynching, gay bashing, or any other violent act whose purpose is to cause a class of people to to flee the public sphere. The differences between hate crimes are normal violent crimes are meant to offer more punishment for such crimes, with certain types of accompanying actions being used as proxy indicators to determine when a crime is a hate crime.
Domestic violence is different than normal violence, but it is not the same as hate crimes either. Most jurisdictions have separate laws for domestic violence already that try and account for those differences. In the past, it was often to put less weight on this type of violence, but in recent years it has changed in many places to try and better serve the abused. Many states now have legal requirements to arrest and prosecute even without a filed complaint. That is not the case with most violent assaults.
That’s actually exactly my point. All the “class” of people mentioned are ones considered at a disadvantage and in need of protection. Are women not at a disadvantage? Statistics would say yes.
Why are women not considered a “protected” class of people - at a disadvantage- considering the statistics regarding social, economic, and societal history?
If someone who is a habitual domestic abuser, chooses only to abuse women but has no history of assault regarding men, why is it so “out there” to conclude that he has a “hate” for women? Thus making the abuse a hate crime?
Because I don’t think it’s related to hate of women, but rather to control, jealousy, etc…issues. IOW, if the culprit were bisexual, I think he would also beat the crap out of his male partners.
Now, I’m no specialist of domestic violence, but nevertheless I think that to make it a hate crime, you’d need to demonstrate that the culprit actually hates women, rather than having anger management issues and being a control freak with his partners, for instance.
And again, since domestic violence isn’t unheard of in lesbian couples, for instance, and since it also often goes hand in hand with child abuse (violence, not sex) it shows IMO that hating/despising women isn’t a required component.
In any case, if you were to make all domestic violence cases hate crimes, this would need to include domestic violence against men and same sex partners too (which seems a bit weird), unless you can show that there’s a specific component in violence by a man against his wife that isn’t present in violence by a man against his male partner or by a woman against his husband, etc…
His victims have two things in common, not just one. They’re all women, but they’re also all his partners. He doesn’t have a history of assault against men, but does he have an history of assault against women who aren’t his partners? I suspect that most domestic abusers don’t assault strange women, either.
Now, if he also assault female coworkers or neighbours while shouting “all women are sluts”, maybe you have a case.
To sum up, domestic violence IMO has more to do with attitude towards one’s partner than with attitude towards women. But again, I’m no specialist.
Sorry for the answer in three posts.
All excellent view points, the interesting thing about these topics though is that it takes a removal of privilege to even really consider the question without instantly dismissing it and talking about “jewelers”.
Women do get beat while being called a bitch and other gender derogatory names. And “strange” women do get raped; why isn’t rape considered a hate crime? Men get raped. No one is arguing that. But we’re looking at statistics.
Can anyone make an argument, while including (or hell, even acknowledging) * the statistics of how many rape cases, murders, violent crimes etc…happen against women as they argue that women shouldn’t be included as a protected class?*
Thanks for the thoughtful response. The thing that’s interesting is, I’m sure this hypothetical man get’s nagged and the evil eye and annoyed by other people. And, to my understanding, intent is a factor when considering punishment for crimes.
So, considering the overwhelming percentage of women who die in domestic murders; should wives be considered a protected class?
Well like I said, there’s a lot in name. Refusing to acknowledge something correctly allows invisibility. For example, angry substance abusers may get anger management treatment but they are (at least) made aware that they have a substance abuse problem.
Also, hate crimes carry harsher punishments; another conscious confirmation of the severity of bias based violent crimes.
And this is interesting, according to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act - gender is protected:
However, according to the 2011 FBI hate crime stats:
So, Question:
Gender is protected under the hate crime act. As we can see by the FBI statistics, people have been found guilty committing hate crimes against other protected peoples listed in the act. Yet, though women account for 96% of intimate murder victims, repeated domestic abusers of their partners (mostly women victims) have been convicted, - no one has been convicted of a gender based crime.
Women are not afraid to walk the streets because a few men in town beat up their wives. Gay people may well be afraid to be seen if gay people in town have gotten beaten up for being gay. Jews may be afraid to be out in areas of town where Jews have been beaten up for being Jewish.
Hate crimes almost by definition need to be free of personal entanglements between the attacker and victim, because attacking someone you have a personal beef with does not imply that others who share that person’s gender/race/sexuality/religion are in any particular danger.
I will say this, when there is a rapist ‘on the loose’ in a town, women do live in fear, even in their own homes. I recall living in NYC and hearing about someone breaking into apartments and committing rape. That type of thing should be considered every bit as much a hate crime as any other act could be. If there have been zero gender based hate crimes, I think that is a major hole in the prosecution of hate crimes.
Well, yes. Men are the victims in a vast majority of cases of violent crime, of murder, of “crimes against the person”, and so on. The “statistics of how many” cases of those crimes happen to women, is that far more happen to men. So why should women be a protected class?
In addition, men commit most of their crimes against other men, by a large margin. This doesn’t exactly indicate a motivation of hostility against women. Women, on the other hand, commit most of their crimes of violence against men too.
So why are you worried about violence against women? Might as well be worried specifically about violence against white people: it’s a comparitively small problem, but it’s a problem effecting a privileged group so it gets the attention.
I am curious as to what these statistics might be. It’s no secret what statistics show black people to be a disadvantaged group, of course: lower life expectancies, lower rates of conmpletion of secondary education, lower rates of higher education, higher rates of violence victimisation, higher rates of unemployment, higher rates of homelessness, higher rates of incarceration, higher rates of on-the-job injuries, demonstrable discrimination in employment, criminal sentencing and the like, and suchlike. But none of those apply to women, rather they all apply to men. So I would be very curious about what statistics show women to be a disadvantaged group.
Except it’s not enough for an assault or murder to to be interracial or for that matter for it to involve people of different orientations.
You have to prove that the crime was actually motivated by bias. That’s why there are plenty of instances of whites murdering blacks or vice versa without being charged with a hate crime. In fact, the victim doesn’t even need to be of a different ethnic group or sexual orientation.
For example, if someone beats up a white person who he mistakes for being an Arab while screaming racial slurs about Arabs or beats up a straight person he thinks is gay while yelling anti-gay slurs, he could certainly be charged with a hate crime.
Moreover, if someone commits a violent crime against another person of a different ethnic group or sexual orientation, but there is no compelling evidence they were motivated by racial or homophobic bias, they can’t be automatically charged with a hate crime.
That’s why plenty of minorities who mug whites or straight who mug gays aren’t charged with hate crimes.
Moreover hate crimes have nothing to do with groups being “protected”. It’s all about the motivations of the attacker. That’s why plenty of blacks have been charged with hate crimes for crimes committed against whites. Also, while I’m not aware of it ever happening, if a gay person deliberately committed a violent crime against someone specifically because they were straight, he or she could certainly be convicted of a hate crime.